TEWKSBURY, Mass., June 18, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) has been awarded a contract to evaluate the effectiveness of new technology for increasing system information assurance.

The technology, which defends against potential attacks carried out by the operators of systems, was developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, by Teknowledge Corporation, Palo Alto, Calif.

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) is working with Teknowledge to evaluate the technology's potential by applying it to a multi-domain situational awareness system that Raytheon developed for defense and homeland security.

The effort was inspired by Raytheon's desire to advance the state of the art for detecting and blocking potential information compromises initiated by users who operate the nation's defense systems.

The technology interprets an operator's behavior in the context of the operator's role and the current state of the system. It determines whether the action would harm the system or compromise information and blocks potentially harmful operator action.

"Protecting defense systems from inadvertent or malicious operator actions is vitally important," said Mark Russell, vice president, IDS Engineering. "Threats from within may represent a vulnerability to these systems."

The contract will evaluate the effectiveness of the protective mechanism in a real operational environment, according to Tom Bracewell, Raytheon's program manager.

"We are evaluating the technology in actual applications and threat scenarios," Bracewell said. "It has the potential to become a common approach for insider threat mitigation in many defense programs."

Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Joint Battlespace Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a broad international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon Company, with 2007 sales of $21.3 billion, is a technology leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 86 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 72,000 people worldwide.